Do you remember the drive home
after the long day of visiting
and how the tree branches would
wipe away the stars, then give them back
as you watched through the back window
and the car swayed with the road
that worked along the creek
and through the gap in the hills.
After the many minutes that seem much longer,
the faint clicking of the tappets,
the space between your parents,
and the humming tires are a silence.
All you hear is the radio. Marshal Dillon
is talking to Miss Kitty. You do not
yet know the word “madam”
or “whore.” You do not know what you hear
in their voices or how to name
the silences in the front, but what you hear
is more than “madam” or “whore”
and you trust it, believe it, even though
you are nowhere in it, as you listen
to the layering of voices, and the faint smear
of stars appears and disappears again
and again in the oval of the window.